A Veldt Official Part 8

with bitter, stinging emphasis. "When you can't have everything as you want it you swing round and become insulting."

"Oh, I had no intention that way," he returned quickly, half cowed by the lash of her anger. "I made the remark simply and solely in your own interest."

"My own interest is very well able to take care of itself." Then relenting, for she felt mercifully disposed towards this fresh victim.

"Never mind. You are very much upset. I can see that. We will think no more about it."

He made no reply, but sat looking straight in front of him. The molten glare of afternoon was merging into the slanting rays of approaching sunset. From the scorching stoniness of the hillside the screech of crickets rang out in endless vibration--varied now and again by the drowsy hum of winged insects, or the "coo" of a dove from the willows overhanging the dam. A shimmer of heat lay over the wide veldt, and a thundercloud was gathering black upon the craggy turrets cresting the distant spurs of the Stormberg mountains.

"You are right. I am rather--er--well, not quite myself," said Lambert jerkily. "I think I had better go."

Mona's face softened. She had refused him, it was true, but she was not going to dismiss him altogether. That was not her way, being a young woman who thoroughly believed in proving the fallaciousness of the proverb about not being able to eat your cake and have it too.

"Don't go away angry," she said, throwing a deft plaintiveness into her pleading. "We have been such good friends--why should we not continue to be? You will come and see us as usual?"

The melting wistfulness of her eyes, even the lingering pressure of the hand which she had extended--half dropped--to him out of the hammock, had their effect on Lambert, who in a matter of this kind was as easy to make a fool of as most men.

"Well, I think I'll go now," he said unsteadily. "Yes, I hope we'll continue to be friends--for I must go on seeing you," he added with a kind of desperation. "Good-bye."

"Not good-bye. Only 'so long' as they say here," she answered kindly.

And with a hurried a.s.sent he tore himself away.

Mona, left to herself, felt regretful, but it was a regret dashed with a kind of triumph; which exultation in turn gave way to a feeling bordering on fierce resentment. Not against Lambert, though; for before his horse's hoofs were out of hearing along the Doppersdorp road she had almost forgotten her dejected and discomfited adorer. No, it was evoked by his parting insinuation, which had so aroused her anger at the time, and now moved her to an exultation which made all her pulses stir, and, alone as she was, caused her to flush hotly.

Not long, however, was she destined to be left to her own thoughts, such as they were, for presently Mrs Suffield invaded her solitude. At her the latter shot a quick, curious glance.

"Well, Mona; and what have you done to him?"

"To him? To whom?"

"You know who well enough: the doctor, of course. He could hardly bid me good-bye coherently, and went away with a face as if he were about to hang himself."

"Well, he wouldn't be going _away_ to do that; because he could hardly find a tree big enough for the purpose in the whole district except here. He'd have to do it here or nowhere."

"What a heartless girl you are, Mona! Why did you play with the poor fellow like that? Of coa.r.s.e its all fun to you--"

"And death to him, you were going to say. But it isn't. He's glum enough now--but wait a year or two and see. He'll brag about it then, and go about hinting, or more than hinting, that there was a stunning fine girl down Doppersdorp way--this, if he's changed his abode--who was awfully smashed on him, and so on. Wait and see. I know them, and they're all alike." And the speaker stretched herself languidly, and yawned.

Grace Suffield hardly knew what to say, or whether to feel angry or laugh. But she was spared the necessity of replying, for Mona went on--

"By the way, we never see anything of Mr Musgrave now. Its ages since he's been here."

"I was nearly saying, 'small wonder, after the way you treated him.'

But I won't, for there, at any rate, is a man whom even you can't make a fool of. He's built of sterner stuff."

"Is he?" with a provoking smile. "But what on earth do you mean, Grace, by 'the way in which I treated him'?"

"Oh, you know very well what I mean. You did nothing but encourage him at first; then you cold-shouldered him, and launched out in a fast and furious flirtation with the new doctor, because he _was_ new, I suppose."

"So was the other. But, Grace, I didn't cold-shoulder him. I liked the man. If he was so weak as to become jealous of the doctor, I can't help it."

"Weak!" flashed out Grace. "Weak! I don't think there's much weakness about Mr Musgrave, and I'm certain he's not the sort of man to indulge in anything so--so--feeble as jealousy."

"Then he won't do for me," rejoined Mona, with a light laugh. "I don't care about a man who can't be jealous. I like them to be jealous.

Makes one more valuable, don't you see."

"All right, Mona, my child. I can only say what I've said more than once before, and that is, Wait until your own time comes, as come it a.s.suredly will; then we shall see."

Furious with herself for doing so, Mona was conscious of colouring ever so slightly at this prediction, often uttered, but coming now so close upon her former meditations. She took refuge by the bold expedient of running in right under the enemy's guns.

"Far be it from me to disparage your knight errant, Gracie," she replied, with a mischievous laugh, and a slight emphasis on 'your.' "So he is made of sterner stuff, is he?"

The only answer was a sniff of contempt.

"Very well," she went on adopting this as an affirmative; "what will you bet me I don't bring him to my feet in a fortnight, Gracie?"

"I won't bet on anything so ridiculous--so atrocious," was the tart reply. "Roden Musgrave is too far out of the ordinary specimen of a man to be twisted round even your finger, Mona."

It was the speaker's turn to colour now. She had spoken with such unconscious warmth that Mona was gazing fixedly at her with the most mischievous expression in the world.

"Oh!" was all she said. But the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n spoke volumes.

It was a curious coincidence, but a coincidence, that Lambert, about halfway on his road to Doppersdorp, should encounter--or rather, so absent and self-absorbed was his mood, run right into--a couple of hors.e.m.e.n riding in the direction from which he had just come. Indeed, it was the cheery hail of one of the latter that first made him aware of their presence.

"Hi! Hallo, Lambert! You're riding in the wrong direction, man. Turn round, turn round and come back with us. We are going to have a rhybok shoot to-morrow."

But Charles Suffield's hospitable suggestion only made Lambert scowl, and mutter something about having to be back. For the second of the two hors.e.m.e.n was the objectionable Musgrave himself, who carried a gun. The sight almost made him hesitate. He had no mind to leave the field open to his rival, for so, in his soreness and jealousy, he considered the other. His excuse, however, was not altogether a bogus one. Of late, quite an alarming proportion of his time had been spent at Quaggasfontein, and his patients were beginning to grumble, notably those who had ridden or driven some three or four hours to find him, and found him absent. His practice would suffer; for, apart from the possibility of the importation of a rival medico, there was a large proportion of people who would speedily find out their ability to do without treatment, from the mere fact that they had to. So he stuck to his intention as first expressed.

"Lambert looks a trifle off colour," said Suffield, with a comical glance at his companion when they had resumed their way.

"Does he? I'm not sorry he didn't leap at your suggestion. I don't particularly care for the fellow."

"He seems awfully gone on Mona, and I suppose she's playing the fool with him, as usual. She's a most incurable flirt, that girl, and she certainly does manage to bring them all to their knees. I tell her she'll end her days an old maid."

The other smiled drily over Suffield's artless ramblings, for the two men had become very intimate by this time. It occurred to him that Mona had thought at one time to pa.s.s him through the same mill.

The warmth of welcome Roden met at the hands of his hostess was about equal to the warmth with which she scolded him. What did he mean by such behaviour? It was nearly a month since he had been near them.

Busy? A great deal to do? Nonsense! She knew better than that.

Doppersdorp Civil Servants were not the most hard-worked of their kind, there was always that redeeming point in the G.o.dforsakenness of the place, and so on, and so on.

"That's right, Mrs Suffield; crowd it on thick! Nothing like making up for lost time," he laughed.

"Well, but--you deserve it."

"Oh yes. I won't make that bad excuse which is worse than none, and which you have been discounting before I made it. Besides, you owe me a blowing-up. I'm afraid I dragooned you far harder, when you were handed over to my tender mercies, crossing the river in the box."

"Well, you were rather ill-tempered," she admitted maliciously. "I wonder how Mona would have stood it."